China-Arab trade booms over two decades

This photo taken on Sept. 22, 2023 shows the digital economy exhibition area at the sixth China-Arab States Expo in Yinchuan, northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. (Xinhua/Feng Kaihua)

BEIJING, May 30 (Xinhua) -- Trade between China and the Arab League has witnessed robust expansion as the two sides bolstered economic cooperation since the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum was established 20 years ago, customs data showed.

Total goods trade volume between China and members of the Arab League surged to 2.8 trillion yuan (about 393.75 billion U.S. dollars) in 2023 from 303.81 billion yuan in 2004, an increase of 820.9 percent, according to China's General Administration of Customs (GAC).

In the first four months of 2024, China's imports and exports with the Arab League climbed 3.8 percent year on year to a historic high of 946.17 billion yuan, accounting for 6.9 percent of the country's total foreign trade value.

The United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Oman, Qatar, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia are China's top six trade partners in the Arab League in terms of trade value. They took up 84.8 percent of the total China-Arab trade in the first four months, GAC data revealed.

China is the largest source of automobile imports, as well as textiles and garments, to the Arab League. Between January and April this year, Chinese exports under these two catalogs increased by 66.3 percent and 3.2 percent year on year, respectively.

The Arab League is China's largest import source of energy products. In the first four months of 2024, China imported 397.29 billion yuan worth of energy products from the Arab League, or 38 percent of China's total energy product imports in this period.

Also, in the first four months of this year, trade between China's private enterprises and the Arab League totaled 497.14 billion yuan, up 16.3 percent year on year. In the same period, it accounted for 52.5 percent of the total China-Arab trade, an increase of 5.7 percentage points compared with a year ago.

The 10th ministerial meeting of the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum was held in Beijing on Thursday. During the conference, China signed a number of bilateral and multilateral cooperation documents with the participating countries and the General Secretariat of the Arab League.